Mount and Balance

It was kind of an odd day at work today knowing Jason was gone forever. We all kind of got straight to work unlike the usual slow start to the morning. I went with Ben and Allen to mount a couple touch panels in the morning. The first one was to be mounted on a freestanding mount in the junior high library. That one took us the longest because it was a new stand that didn’t have fine adjustments to account for leveling. We ended up shifting it around and mounting it slightly differently than designed.

Next was a quick install at Crawford and the subsequent dragging of an E65 out of that building before breaking for lunch. The new guys wanted to go to Linh, which I’d heard them suggest at least three or four times since they started. When we finished, Allen and I ran by the high school to deliver a hotspot, and then took the old freestanding TV mount to Cunningham for scrap. We only got seven bucks out of it, and I’m sure it cost in the hundreds. I would have liked to keep it, but it was pretty unwieldy.

Our last task for the day was to deliver and assemble a laptop cart to London. We finished with some time to spare, which I spent at the shop cleaning out my cabinet a bit.

I spent most of my evening playing Overwatch and feeling like I was getting progressively sicker. Hopefully I don’t wake up with a head cold, but I can feel the sinuses getting pretty gross already.

COVID-19

Dungeons & Dragons & Knights, Oh My!

I got up this morning and warmed up some leftovers as Summer motivated the kids to start chores. Eventually she left for a manicure and the gym, and I went home to do some cleaning up myself. I had to stop by Amanda’s first to check on the cats, then went home and took care of my own. I did a little quick maintenance on the fish tanks as well, and made time for a couple rounds of Overwatch with Johnny.

The evening snuck up on me pretty quickly, and I headed back to Summer’s for our night of Dungeons & Dragons with Travis, John, and Melissa. I stopped by Dollar General for some snacks first, then we made our way up the hill. The two kids didn’t show up, but I think overall it was better for it. We had only really done one little short prebuilt campaign before, so this was our first time with character sheets and the like, and I think it stressed Travis out a little too much. We ended up quitting really early and just sat around quietly visiting for a little longer before going home.

Summer crawled into bed pretty quickly with Autumn, so I started the old musical Camelot that I picked up with some Amazon digital credits. I remembered precious little of the movie from my very early childhood, but it’s always stuck in my mind, so I figured why not burn some free credits on it. Eaddie started to watch it with us, but then almost immediately left when she realized what it was. Autumn fell asleep to it really early as well. Summer made it a little over halfway before asking if it was some kind of 4-hour feature, so we quit there.

Never be too disturbed if you don’t understand what a woman is thinking. They don’t do it very often!

Feed Me!

We had a little training session this morning, and Ben brought little sausage rolls and donuts for us. When we finished there, Allen asked for some help picking up a cart, but wanted to stop by the middle school first. Charlotte gave us some apple dumplings and ice cream, and then one of her ladies gave me a big Salvadorian sandwich she had made that I ate on the way out to London. It ended up being a tiny cart that Allen could probably have actually fit in his car, but it didn’t matter at that point.

We got back to the shop with a little time before lunch, so I chatted with Gary for a little while. The guys decided on Fat Daddy’s in London for lunch, and I wasn’t hungry at all, but for some reason I let them peer pressure me into driving them out there. The place was completely empty when we got there, and the owner walked in right before us and said he wanted to take care of our meals, so we all got to eat for free. Being full already, I just had a bowl of chili that stuffed me over the edge. It was alright, but tasted too barbecue saucy for me.

I spent a little while in the afternoon chatting with Ben before going to the high school to finish up the day. He said we could go home at 3, but Johnny called needing some help at the aquatic center for a diving competition and I opted to try and help out. We don’t actually have anything at all to do with any of that equipment, and nobody out there really knew what they were doing or how to help me help them, so I spent a good amount of time on someone else’s iPhone talking to their IT guy. He pointed me in a few different directions, but we could never get the scoreboard to work.

With the work week over, I stopped by Summer’s to see her on the way home. She wanted me to stick around and wait for the kids, so I sat on the bench for a while and ended up video calling Suzanne to catch up for a bit since she’s been at school. The kids never showed up, and it started getting really cold outside, so I left for home and played a bunch of video games.

Bác Vân called with some TV trouble, so I went next door to help with that and she sent me home with some papaya salad. Then Jack and Johnny got on to play Deep Rock Galactic, which was weird and entertaining, but long. We ended the night with some Overwatch with Aaron and eventually Clint. Finally, I made my way up to Summer’s for bed.

Leave it to shrimp paste to ruin the day’s trend.

Pancakes on Pancakes

Summer took Autumn to Stoby’s this morning so she could prep for their Explorers fundraiser. Then the rest of us got up and headed down for all-you-can-eat pancakes. The food was simple, but filling. We didn’t stay long since Noah had to go to work. We stopped by Amanda’s so I could bring some packages in for her, and then went to my house until Autumn was done.

Summer took him to work while I showered, and then we watched some Glee. The breakfast lasted until around 2, so we went to Walmart to kill some more time until Autumn finished. Then we picked her up and headed home. I kept fussing at her that I was hungry, and that she should make us dinner after having worked for half a day. Unsurprisingly she passed on the opportunity. We watched some more Glee until dinner time, then I grilled some more burritos.

After we ate, Summer wanted to play some Catan, but we quit at 7 points since the kids were fussy and needed to go to bed anyway.

I will trade you one random lumber card for five lumber.

Lumpday

I was pretty scattered today, like the rest of the week. It rained pretty heavily most of the day, and somehow I kept finding myself out in it. At least my waterproof shoes worked perfectly. I wasn’t very hungry by the time lunch snuck up on me, but Allen texted me last-minute to go to KFC. I just had a famous bowl, which still filled me up plenty, and I only paid about half of what he paid for his buffet.

The afternoon went by pretty quickly too, as I continued to pick at more things around the office. I went home and played a little Overwatch by myself in the cold until Summer got home. Then I went by Casey’s for their free rewards item. There was a little cat pacing and meowing around the front door, so I stopped to boop it a little on the way out. Then I got a snack from Taco Bell, gas from Shell, and headed up to Summer’s for the evening. Everyone there was pretty much off to bed, so I got on and played some more Overwatch with Clint, Johnny, and Jack until bed.

C-can you hear that music?

No Phasing Them

We got up this morning and picked at some leftover breakfast from last week. I eventually made it home to clean up after the cat and hang out for a while. I played a bit of Overwatch and took a shower with my nice new bath towels. They’re almost too plush, but I assume that will wash down a bit. One of the hand towels frayed on one side, but I couldn’t find any way to contact the manufacturer. I guess I could contact J. C. Penney and pursue a refund that way, but that sounds horrible. I might as well just keep the stupid thing.

Summer made fajitas for dinner and had Nick’s son Zach over to hang out with the girls. I stopped by Casey’s on the way over to convert some old box tops into virtual credits, and the lady had to do it three times before she figured out what was going wrong. Eventually she seemed satisfied with her process and sent me on my way. Dinner was great, and we played some Phase 10 and Mario Kart until Zach went home and everyone went to bed.

Hey Google, play some music, here, in this house, where we are currently located.

Just a Formality

I couldn’t sleep in much today because of how bright it was in my room, so I spent most of the day pretty tired after my long night. Summer took Eaddie home, so I got straight to cleaning up for the day. After my shower, I finally tested out my new faucet and found that it leaked pretty badly at the drain. After mopping up all the water under the sink, I spent a little while tightening up all the connections until it didn’t really seem to leak any more. I’ll have to test it some more later, but I think it will probably be good enough when used normally and not pumping water into the bowl as fast as I can.

I had to go to my parents’ house to get some red envelopes for the kids, but Bác Vân came over and asked to borrow a bunch of money on my way out. I typically don’t have instant access to that much cash on a weekend without any notice, so I wished her good luck and many learned lessons. When I got to my parents’ house, Dad was recovering from feinting a bit after his surgery. I didn’t have time to stick around for very long because Summer had lunch ready, so I grabbed some envelopes and headed up to their house.

Summer’s mom was there finishing up Autumn’s dress, so I had lunch and just sat around with the kids. When she left and after we had all eaten, Summer and I went to Walmart for some stuff for dinner. Once she had that going, we watched some TV until Autumn’s date for the formal arrived. We missed the really good lighting, so I just did the best I could with what we had. Then we settled in and watched Glee until the dance was over.

Suzanne was in town and stopped by for just a little while to watch one episode with us. Then we chatted for just a little bit more before she left. Autumn eventually made it home, and the girls all crashed. I played some Overwatch with Clint, Josh, and one of his friends, then went to bed myself.

Well, you’ve missed the golden hour, so you get the tasteful yellow glow of a porch light.

Hamburger Visage

Today was boring. I picked at a few things at work, but bored myself avoiding all the usual things. Nobody said anything about lunch, so I mixed up some powdered Soylent. I only made a 200kcal serving, which will usually hold me over in a pre-made bottle of v2.0. Instead, I just felt super hungry all afternoon. I couldn’t stop thinking about hamburgers, and I could never shake that the rest of the day.

Ben stopped by in the afternoon and did a little work in my office, but vanished again while I had left to work on something else. I went home after work expecting something fun from UPS, but it ended up being my toaster for work. While I was there, I decided to finally mount the shim behind my doorbell so the camera would be a little more centered. Then I went to my parents’ for some more fish soup.

After digging through some more old crap from my childhood, I hit up Shell for some cheap gas and then headed to Summer’s. She wanted to keep my new toaster, so now I have a brand new, used toaster for work. I sat on the couch and played some more Tomb Raider on Stadia, and eventually everyone went to bed.

Isn’t it peculiar how everything is perfectly fine while you’re brushing our teeth, but as soon as you spit a big wad of toothpaste out and accidentally hit your toothbrush, it becomes super gross?

Nice to See Yule

It was pretty cold this morning, but the afternoon turned out pretty nice. I made it in to work and picked at a few things in the morning until I had to leave for my contact refitting. I’m not sure what brand they had me try first, but they were always dry and scratchy, and just generally fit really poorly. The ACUVUE OASYS they gave me today were immediately way better, though still felt a bit scratchier than the CooperVision Proclear lenses from my existing prescription. They also give me some sort of aberration that I mostly noticed in my upper left peripheral vision, but that may become less noticeable with time.

When I finished with that appointment, I went by Taco John’s and picked up some lunch to surprise Summer. We ate quickly, and then I went to the shop to check in since I didn’t do that yesterday after our week break. I mingled and chatted there for quite a while before heading back to the high school to finish the day. I wrapped up by tinkering with my tiny Christmas tree to get it all properly lit, then headed to my parents’ house for dinner. Mom made some fish soup out of the turkey broth Dad made. Then I picked through another bag of old nostalgic crap that Dad was trying to throw away before going to get the girls from karate.

We headed to their house for the evening, and I played on Stadia for a bit. Farming Simulator 19 seemed about as complicated as I expected. Then I switched to Tomb Raider, another December freebie. It played pretty well, but there was one particular moment where I definitely blamed my repeated deaths on input lag.

Can’t forget Hog Wild Wednesday for 10¢ off at Shell tomorrow!

I’ll Never Forget About Larry

Summer had to work this morning, which allowed for me to sleep in a while. With Thanksgiving break nearly over, I let myself get a pretty slow start to the day. I had to get the girls from their friend’s house, but first I stopped by the Ridgewood Brothers to try and snag some brisket. Grant handed me a cube of it out the window as I approached, and it just melted in my mouth. I picked up a couple pounds along with some sides, picked up the girls, and took them home.

Summer got home just a bit after us, we ate, and then left the girls to clean house while we went shopping. My first stop was Bath & Body Works, where I dragged her around the store sniffing soaps. I had a coupon, a need for fancy foaming soaps, and a complete lack of shame for being the one that wanted to go shopping there.

Next we stopped at my house for just a moment before heading to Walmart for groceries and other shopping list things I needed. I ended up grabbing one of those Black Friday pressure washers that Julie was going on about, since they had a pallet of them left over. I wish we could have spent a little more time looking, but we had to get back before Harry got to the house.

When we got there, the girls were inside giggling about how he was driving up and down the road trying to find their house, rather than trying to help direct him to the place. Summer started cooking most of the meal, and I changed the oil for some sweet potato fries. The kids played the Switch a bit before wandering back through the house. Dinner was simple and good, though I was still pretty full from the late BBQ lunch.

We played a couple quick rounds of Stuff Happens and Uno before the girls settled in to watch The Conjuring. Eaddie was probably the most excited to watch a scary movie, but I knew the game. Harry ended up having to leave before the movie was over, so Autumn went to her room for the night while I helped Eaddie finish the movie. Once that was over, she beat me in some Mario Kart before awkwardly snuggling to some Luke Cage. She started to fall asleep in the middle of the second episode, so that was the end of the day.

Just trying to make up for lost time…